I’m departing from the usual suspects as far as live music goes over the next couple of months, as the next two gigs I’m going to are of bands I’ve never seen live before. We’re going to see Portishead live in Edinburgh in a couple of weeks’ time, and then in May it’s the Willard Grant Conspiracy.

Portishead should be interesting, I’ve no idea how that’ll translate to a live setting at all, way back when Dummy first came out I loved it but never even considered checking them out live.

Willard Grant Conspiracy will be a great night out I think. Being a close personal friend to the stars, I was recently talking to a composer I know – when I asked him if he was working on anything interesting he said he’d co-written an album with an American band and would be going out on tour with them in the summer. I possibly tried to nod knowledgeably for a moment when he said it was WGC before quickly fessing up that I’d never heard of them! I have now, though!

I stumbled across this track in my iTunes earlier this week, and had to post it here.

Last summer, New York Magazine picked up on a mashup I’d blogged about and within their article there was a link to this one – so I downloaded it, listened to it a few times, laughed a lot, and then completely forgot about it. It is absolutely awesome, isn’t it?

Anyway, thanks again to NY Mag, I’d no idea I’d get anything like the amount of traffic I ended up getting that week, pity hardly anybody stuck around!!!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Oh to be a headline writer. Top story in today’s Super Soaraway Sun is how veteran-rocker-Fish-out-of-Marillion-real-name-Derek-Dick was inspired by a fine pert set of baps on page 3 to write a song about Zoe, from London, 25.

Click the link above (NSFW, obviously!) to see the aforementioned baps, and the link below to listen to sound clips from the 13th Star album including “Zoe 25” – and obviously to buy as much or as little of the album as you like. I’ll add a streaming version of the whole track to this post when I get home this evening.

I’ve let the frequency of my posts slip again, haven’t I? Mitigating circumstances are that I was away from home for a week, but I really must do better – I posted hee haw for a week and a half before I went, which is pretty poor really.

And what better way to start a “must do better” than with a bit of Porcupine Tree? I think I’ve done pretty well so far in controlling the urge to post the whole of Stupid Dream (I’ve only covered Pure Narcotic and Piano Lessons up until now) – that album is so frickin’ good every single track deserves to be showcased. But my hope is that once you’ve heard two or three tracks you won’t be able to stop yourself clicking on the link below and buying a copy for yourself.

This blog is intended as a way to spread the word about music I really like, and encourage others to support artists who are making great music. "Try before you buy", if you like. If you hear something you like here, go and buy it - I'll post links to online shops where you can buy each track I blog about.

If you're reading this and you are the artist, or their record company, and you don't want a track I've posted to be available to hear in this way just email me and let me know - I will be more than happy to take the file down straight away. I've heard of other bloggers getting threatened with letters from lawyers, and there is absolutely no need to waste your money on that with me!